THERE is a need to ensure all policies and fundamentals are in order to achieve full and productive employment by 2030, says Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation's chief executive officer Nesbitt Hazelman

Mr Hazelman said while he was ambitious and optimistic, one had to be realistic when talking about achieving the goals set.

"We need to ensure all the policies and all the fundamentals are right. We need to train for future jobs. Our education's to provide for future jobs. Right now they are not," he said.

He made these comments while speaking at the 10th Speaker's Debate held at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva last night.

According to Mr Hazelman, every year 17,000 graduates came out of institutions with job availability being only 600.

Mr Hazelman said companies had to invest quite considerably in retraining graduates.

"Those policy makers need to understand that jobs are changing. Parents need to understand that not everybody will get white collar jobs. We need to encourage our youths to take blue collar jobs because they are the jobs of the future," he said.

"We need to do more. We need to attract the IT sector, we need to be training people for those opportunities, call centres. We need people."

Mr Hazelman said the Government, trade unions and employers must work together to address the fundamental problems.

"There needs to be a fundamental approach to our data collecting strategies in this country. "

He said Fiji should have been the Singapore of the region with transhipping already taking place, however these opportunities were not being taken advantage of.

"Sixty per cent of our workers are in informal economy. How we can move these informal to formal?

"We need to create pathways and these pathways need strong government policies in order to address them."